1 Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spinning reel, and more particularly to a spinning reel including a rotary frame having a pair of support arms, a bail arm extending between and pivotably attached to the support arms, the bail arm being switchable between a line releasing position for feeding a fishing line and a line retrieving position for retrieving the fishing line, a toggle urge mechanism for selectively maintaining the bail arm either at the line releasing position or the line retrieving position, and a position switchover mechanism for forcibly switching the bail arm from the line releasing position to the line retrieving position against an urging force of the toggle urge mechanism in association with a rotary movement of the rotary frame in a line retrieving direction. The position switchover mechanism includes a drive arm disposed inside one of the support arms for driving the bail arm and a projection formed on a surface of a reel body so as to drive the drive arm per se to a position corresponding to the line retrieving position through contact with the drive arm which is rotatable in unison with the rotary frame.
2 Description of the Related Art
In this type of spinning reel, when a handle is operated to rotate the rotary frame in the line retrieving direction, the drive arm and the projection on the reel body come into contact with each other thereby to automatically switch the bail arm to the line retrieving position, so that the construction can prevent a user from failing to effect the switchover operation by mistake. A conventional position switchover mechanism is disclosed, for example, in FIG. 1 of Japanese laid-open utility model gazette No. 62-80570. In this construction, there is provided a toggle urge mechanism for selectively urging a bail arm either to a line releasing position or to a line retrieving position by affecting an arm which carries the bail arm and is pivotably supported to the support arms of the rotary frame. A spring holder of this toggle urge mechanism is supported within the support arm. And, a piston pin which is projectably and retractably held within the spring holder is connected with the pivotable arm. Further, there is provided a drive arm for pivoting the bail arm to the line retrieving position by affecting the spring holder.
On the other hand, a reel body includes a projection operable to drive the drive arm through contact with this drive arm.
Both the drive arm and the projection are formed of a highly rigid material. For casting a fishing tackle, the bail arm has to be manually and directly switched over from the line retrieving position to the line releasing position. However, for the above-described rigidity, there sometimes arises a problem that the drive arm and the projection come into too strong contact and become locked with each other in case the drive arm and the projection happen to be located in a same rotational phase.
With the above, the bail arm will be stuck at an intermediate position between the line retrieving position and the line releasing position. If the user attempts to release the locked condition in a forcible manner, this may result in damage to the spring holder and/or the drive arm.